Marianne sat hunched in the stiff plastic chair of the hospital waiting room, her knuckles white as she gripped the handle of her handbag. The clock on the wall ticked slowly, each second echoing like the beat of a death march. She had been here for hours, or so it seemed—waiting, hoping for news about her husband, David. He had gone into surgery early in the morning, a routine procedure, they had said. But routine didn’t feel like the right word anymore.
The waiting room was eerily quiet except for the soft buzz of the fluorescent lights above. Other families had come and gone, their worries resolved in whispers with the doctors, their loved ones wheeled out in gurneys or led away, bleary-eyed but alive. But Marianne remained. Alone.
Her heart raced with a peculiar kind of dread, the kind that gnaws at the edge of reason. Every time a nurse or a doctor passed, she would lift her head, hoping for an update, a sign, anything—but they brushed past her, as if she were invisible. She told herself it was the stress, that maybe David’s surgery was more complicated than anticipated. She tried to stay calm, reminding herself that no news was good news.
But then, the hours turned into days.
At least, she thought they did. She had lost track of time. The clocks still worked—tick, tock, tick, tock—but the sun never seemed to rise or set outside the large windows. The sky remained an oppressive gray, and the world outside felt frozen, like a painting hanging in a forgotten hallway. The bustling nurses, the soft murmur of other visitors—they came in waves, but never approached her. Not once.
She stood up, her legs stiff and shaky from sitting for so long, and approached the front desk. The receptionist was there, the same woman from before—glasses perched on her nose, typing furiously at her keyboard. Marianne cleared her throat.
“Excuse me,” Marianne’s voice cracked from disuse. “Do you have any news about my husband, David? He went into surgery… hours ago.”
The receptionist didn’t look up. Her fingers continued tapping away on the keyboard, though the sound was hollow, mechanical, like she was typing nothing at all.
“Hello?” Marianne’s voice grew louder. She leaned forward, her hands trembling as they gripped the edge of the desk. “Please, I need to know what’s happening with my husband.”
Nothing. No response. She waved her hand in front of the receptionist’s face, but it was as if she wasn’t even there. Her breath hitched as panic clawed at her chest.
She turned and hurried toward the hallway that led to the operating rooms. Maybe she could find a doctor, someone who could tell her something—anything. But as she stepped into the corridor, the lights flickered once, twice, and then she was back.
In the waiting room.
The same plastic chair. The same ticking clock.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she spun around, searching for an explanation. Had she gotten turned around? She rushed toward the exit, her heels clicking frantically on the cold tile floor. When she pushed through the double doors, she found herself once again facing the waiting room.
The same suffocating silence. The same receptionist, still typing, still ignoring her.
Marianne’s pulse thundered in her ears. “No, no, no, no!” she cried, slamming her fists against the door. “This isn’t right! What’s happening?!”
She turned to run down another hallway, but again, the moment she stepped into it, the floor seemed to ripple beneath her feet, like water disturbed by a pebble. The fluorescent lights flickered—and she was back in the waiting room.
It felt like a dream. No matter where she went, no matter how many doors she opened, she was always pulled back to this suffocating limbo. The walls closed in, a claustrophobic terror gnawing at the edges of her sanity.
Something was terribly wrong.
The days—or were they weeks?—dragged on. Marianne screamed for help, begged the staff to notice her, but they remained silent, moving like ghosts through the halls. She hadn’t eaten, hadn’t slept, yet her body didn’t weaken. There was no hunger, no exhaustion, only a growing sense of confusion and dread.
Why wouldn’t they see her?
Her mind raced, thoughts splintering in every direction. Was David even in surgery? Had he already passed, and they just hadn’t told her? Was this some kind of sick joke, or worse, was she losing her mind?
One night, or maybe it was day—time had lost its meaning—a strange noise broke the eerie stillness. It was faint at first, like a soft whisper just beyond her reach. But as Marianne strained to listen, the whisper grew louder, more distinct.
It was her name.
“Marianne…”
She whipped around, her heart leaping into her throat. The voice came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. “Who’s there?” she shouted, her voice echoing through the empty halls.
“Marianne…” the voice repeated, closer now. “You need to wake up.”
Wake up? From what?
She stumbled back, her eyes darting around the room. The walls seemed to shimmer, their edges blurring like a mirage. Her mind raced. Wake up? But she was already awake. She was right here, in the hospital, waiting for news about David. Wasn’t she?
The voice echoed again, louder this time. “You need to wake up, Marianne. You’ve been in surgery for too long.”
The room around her rippled like a pond disturbed by a stone. The fluorescent lights above flickered once, twice, and then darkness swallowed her whole.
When Marianne opened her eyes, she wasn’t in the waiting room anymore. Instead, she found herself lying in a hospital bed, wires attached to her arms, the steady beep of a heart monitor piercing the silence.
A man stood by her bedside, his face pale and drawn. She blinked, her vision clearing as she focused on his features.
It was David.
“David?” she croaked, her throat dry. She tried to sit up, but her body felt heavy, as if it hadn’t moved in a long time.
David’s eyes filled with tears as he took her hand. “Oh, Marianne… you’re awake. I thought I’d lost you.”
Confusion clouded her mind. “Lost me? What are you talking about? You were the one in surgery. I’ve been waiting for you…”
David shook his head slowly, his grip tightening on her hand. “No, Marianne. You’ve been in a coma for weeks. The surgery—it was for you.”
Her heart stopped. The room seemed to tilt as the reality of his words crashed down on her.
She wasn’t waiting for him. He had been waiting for her.
The endless days in the waiting room, the staff ignoring her, the doors leading nowhere—it had all been in her mind, a prison created by her subconscious to keep her from realizing the truth.
She had been slipping away, caught between life and death, her mind trapped in a limbo while her body fought to survive.
The hospital waiting room had never existed.
It was just a dream—a nightmare—her mind’s desperate attempt to hold on to the idea of life, to keep her from accepting the inevitable.
And in the end, she had almost let go.
The weeks that followed were a blur of recovery, but Marianne never spoke of the waiting room. The memory of it haunted her in the quiet moments, when the world around her seemed too still, too quiet.
Sometimes, late at night, she would lie awake in her hospital bed, listening to the steady beep of the heart monitor, and she could still hear it—the soft, ghostly whisper of her name, echoing through the halls of her mind.
It was a reminder of how close she had come to never waking up at all.
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